This blog is an exploration of principled problem solving which is an initiative at Guilford College encouraging a focus of people's abilities and experiences toward solving real-world problems under the guidance of the college’s core values of community, diversity, equality, excellence, integrity, justice and stewardship.

News and events

08/30/2013

In November, I helped host a community festival on Guilford College’s campus known as Fall Fest. Project Community, a student-run community service site, put on Fall Fest for underprivileged children, whose home lives are not the most loving and supportive environments. As a part of the Bonner Center for Community Service & Learning, Project Community aims to help students find volunteer opportunities in the wider community, support other campus student organizations engaged in service issues, and promote a campus-wide ethnic attitude.

Fall Fest included fun activities, such as flag football, soccer, karaoke, relay races, face painting, bouncy houses, and a cake walk. Fall Fest also included a lunch and dessert for the children. Once the children arrived at Guilford College’s campus, it was Project Community’s job to make the sure the children had a fun and safe experience. The kids came from three distinct service sites which included Glenhaven Multicultural After School Care, Pathways Tutoring & Enrichment Program, and Latino IMPACT. All three of these service sites deal with children from specific ethnic backgrounds, providing a safe haven for these children to have fun, get help with homework or problems at home, and to make new friends. Fall Fest meant a lot more to these children than just some silly carnival. All they had to do was focus on having fun. For most of these children, Fall Fest was the only time that they would be able to attend a carnival, so Project Community wanted to make sure that they had as much fun as possible.

The children from all three sites arrived at Hayworth Fields at about 10:15 am, and ran directly to the all the different activities that were set up for them. From 10:15 am to 12:30 pm, the children were allowed to play at whatever station/activity that they desired. From 12:30-1:30pm, the children ate lunch that was provided by Meriwether Godsey. During lunch, the children would provide a little information about their ethnic background, whether it was where they were from, holidays they celebrated, or food they enjoyed. This informational activity was intended to teach the children about other countries, and their similarities and differences within their home countries. Then, from 1:30-3:00pm, the children were allowed to play until it was time to leave.

To me, Fall Fest was a community within itself. There were kids from all different economic and ethnic backgrounds. The children seemed to really enjoy the company of each other, even though it was the first time that they had met. These children did not let their skin colors get in the way of meeting new kids or having fun. It was nice to see a community that seemed so innocent and playful. These children had no cares in the world, and seemed to appreciate all that Project Community had done for them. I was honored to be a part of such a carefree and loving community.

From the second the children walked off the bus, I saw their faces light up because of all the different activities that were offered to them. The children especially enjoyed the bouncy houses and soccer. It was amazing to me to see all these children from different ethnic backgrounds and nationalities in one setting having the time of their lives. Seeing these children smile for even one second, made all the hard work and planning worth it. Knowing that I could help these children forget about their home lives for a couple hours really put things in perspective for me. Fall Fest was an eye opening experience, and one that I will never forget. Fall Fest represented a community that looked past the different races and skin color whose primary goal was to have fun. Being an active member of Fall Fest, I was able to work with children from all types of different backgrounds, that I would not normally encounter. This is a great experience for me, especially when I have to enter the real world. Honestly, for me, the hardest part about Fall Fest was telling the children that it was time to leave, as I really enjoyed spending time with children and learning about their lives. I hope that with the information that I have provided, more of you would be willing to volunteer next year for Fall Fest, and work with some tremendous children.

07/01/2013

As I gazed on at the hectic navy-and-crimson mass jostling its way back and forth across the field from my vantage point behind one of the trees dotting the edge of the Bryan-Frank parking lot, I contemplated the mentality that beckoned these 16 seemingly ordinary crimson-clad college kids to spend their Saturday playing a sport so sparsely acknowledged or appreciated by the American public. It wasn't just any Saturday; the sky hung grey and overcast like a thick canopy over the event, and the 40 degree temperature seemed to plummet at every unexpected gust of cold, dry wind that whipped over the field. I mused from the comfort of my layers of winter insulation at the energy required to make a human being sweat under such impressively miserable winter weather, despite wearing no more insulation or protection than an average soccer player. While admiring how the crimson-and-navy mass morphed from lines spanning the length of the field to tight clusters butting heads for ball possession in a perfectly orchestrated, yet seemingly random sequence of plays, I pondered how despite the absence of your typical 6’5” 250lb. athletic frames on the field, the players had a certain heart which transformed the spectacle on the field from a performance into a passion. And perhaps even more impressive was the amount of people who, despite the date and poor weather conditions, showed up to cheer them on.

Amidst the current debate surrounding the communities in the athlete/non-athlete divide, the Guilford rugby team presents themselves as a talented, dedicated sports team, yet off the field they mingle seamlessly with non-athletic students. Many members of the team are personal friends of mine, hall mates, even fellow PPS scholars, and despite their intimidating presence on the field they also dedicate themselves to strengthening social connections between and amongst their non-athletic peers. Their post-game rugby socials are well-known around campus as the place to be on Friday and Saturday nights after a game, where even the opposing teams are known to show up to celebrate the day’s events. Don Snyder, a current member of the rugby team, discussed this practice in greater detail. “First, you have to understand this isn’t Guilford specific” Don claimed. “Rugby socials have been around as long as the game itself. In such a high-contact, high-adrenaline sport, it’s important to remember that at the end of the day we are just college kids mutually demonstrating our passion for this under-appreciated sport. We also open the socials to fans and associates of the team, because without them we would just be a bunch of guys running into each other in the middle of a field. The fans give us our purpose; including them in the socials isn’t about privilege, it’s about appreciation.” The club aspect also allows members of the rugby team enough free time in the week to maintain their social network with the college. Rugby “hooker” Robert van Pelt stated “we are an athletic team, yes. This means regular practices, intensive conditioning and training, hours of time dedicated to observing and studying the finer plays and points that give us our edge against other teams. However, the club aspect of what we do means we have time between practice and classwork to build our social ties with the community and show our appreciation to the fans who show up to our games.”
Currently, the Guilford rugby team is 2-1 in the season, putting them at a solid 2nd place in their matrix. However, there has been no shortage of past and present adversities the team has had to overcome to reach this point; the team lost many potential players due to injuries and time commitment issues, and now Pelt claims, “If we lose two more people to commitment issues or injuries, we won’t be able to field a team.” Bryce Bjornson, a Guilford graduate and ex-rugby outside center, noted that there had been a few “bad apples” associated with the rugby team that hurt the image of rugby on campus. Some rugby players also alluded to past issues with excessive underage alcohol consumption, one member going as far as claiming, “We were a drinking team with a rugby problem.” Bjornson noted the change in the rugby team during the fall alumni game. “They [current Guilford rugby team] appeared more physically fit than the team I played on,” Bryce noted, “but our team was scrappier, larger, and we always got the job done.” Bryce went on to mention how in 2009, his team won enough games during the season to make the regional playoffs. “That was a great year,” Bryce stated. “Unfortunately, we never made it to the playoffs. Our first playoff games happened to be scheduled during serendipity, which caused too many time conflicts to field a team during the playoff games.” This displays one of the few drawbacks to being a club sport; nobody on the rugby team holds enough authority with the school to allow players to be excused from classes or events to play games. “And our priority in the eyes of the college determines how high of a priority rugby can be to our players” asserted Pelt.

Moving forward, the rugby team is striving to increase its involvement in the community. Snyder elaborated, admitting, “We recognize we are a well supported club sport, and we strive to appreciate that by providing the best experience we can to our current and potential fans.” A few potential plans involve cookouts, community service towards the campus, and themed parties. Snyder and Pelt also alluded to the rugby team’s focus on recruiting in younger classes, to secure longevity in the campus.
When I concluded my interview with Pelt, I asked him to describe that rugby mentality I had been contemplating since Saturdays game, and after a long pause he stated “The rugby mentality is bigger than yourself. It’s bigger than your section in the team, hell, it’s bigger than the team itself. It’s about harnessing the power of the unity gained through competing in such a rigorous sport to promote ethics, teamwork, camaraderie, and social inclusivity, and to spread it as far in this campus as we can. That’s why we do what we do, and we will continue doing it as long as we have 15 dedicated ruggers to do so.”

05/31/2013

I would like, if I may, to present a hypothetical situation to you. Say your house is broken into one night. Your belongings are stolen, your home violated and your safety compromised. You may not know how to react, you may feel scared and alone.

Consider that you know who broke into your house, your neighbor who lives three doors down. You took it to the neighborhood watch and showed your case, yet the neighborhood watch dismissed you. You then take the case to the police and when the neighborhood watch catches wind of your intent, you are told that you are "intimidating" your burgular and that you risk being evicted from your neighborhood. This, essentially, is what happened to a rape victim at UNC-Chapel Hill, Landen Gambill.

Jezebel posted an article explaining that last month, Landen and 64 other unnamed sexual assault victims are alleging that the assistant dean of students was pressured into underreporting sexual assault cases and violating the rights of the victims. In Landen's case especially, she is being punished by the Office of Student Conduct for "intimidating" her rapist by subverting the university's internal system of handling cases and taking her case to the press.

In our class we discuss community in everything that we do. In instances like this, the health of a community is at stake. How can we ensure that a safe space is being created for all members of our community? And conversely, how can we make sure that our community members who have been hurt seek the justice they deserve? If one is not being served through the internal protocol that is provided by our community members, do we have the right to air our dirty laundry in public?

I think that in order to ensure the health of this community, there needs to be a focus on healing who has been hurt. When one of our community members is hurt, we all hurt. It is not a singular pain. It ripples, creating chain reactions, spreading hurt further and further. There needs to be a environment that is conducive to making every member feel safe, not only to speak out but to dispute a claim. Once we feel safe opening a dialogue, we can then move into fixing what has been hurt in the greater community. The issue has been polarized now; you are either on one side or the other. But before we decide to stand with one side or the other, we need to analyze this situation more deeply and look at its effects on the greater community. By healing the relationship between community members, the community can begin to be healed as well.

05/06/2013

On March 9, 2013, I attended the Let’s
Learn NC Summit in Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC.Let’s Learn NC is a
campaign to get equal in-state tuition for undocumented NC resident students.I
attended because it was a part of my job description for my Internship at
American Friends Service Committee to work on the Let’s Learn NC campaign. I also went because if I was going to work on such a meaningful
campaign I wanted to learn more about it. I heard about it through Jorge Zeballos, the
Multicultural Education Department's Latino Coordinator. I attended with Jorge and four other Guilford students.

In-state
tuition is necessary because undocumented students can’t go to college or
universities unless they pay out-of-state tuition, even if they meet all
other requirements for in-state. Out-of-state tuition is four times more than the
price of in-state tuition making it unaffordable to undocumented students.

The organization of Winston-Salem,
El Cambio, organized the meeting. At this summit I learned that the campaign
Let’s Learn NC was started by the Adelante Education Coalition. The
first year they presented an in-state tuition bill was in 2003 and the
second time was in 2005. Now in 2013 it is the third time they are making this
effort. El Pueblo and Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF) are other organizations
that came before Adelante Education Coalition and have also worked on education and
immigration rights.

Since we ask
if there are organizations that are for the cause, we must also ask if there are organizations that
are against the cause? We learned about NC Fire that is anti-equal tuition and NC Listen that is anti-immigrant. This conference, Let’s Learn NC
Summit, was held to come up with a strategic plan in order to obtain the
support of the council members of cities and counties.

The Let’s LearnNC Campaign is divided
into three teams; lobbying, communication, and organization. At the summit they
began by separating us in two groups, one was communication and the other was
organizing. I participated in the organizing group. In this group we had to
name different work places, universities, and religions that have great
influence in the community. They planned to ask these organizations for their support and to use their support to try to change the minds of
other organizations and people so that they would support the cause.

When our two groups came back together we began to answer the question, How can we convince NC which is a rural state that equality in education is
necessary? “Avoiding the politics,” many said. Others suggested, “we could
use the youthful movement, economic and religious aspects, and being united
behind the American dream.” With this we began to create a power map to analyze the
positions on education of members of the Winston-Salem City Council. We did
this for various members of other counties as well. Then we joined all of them
in the power map.

This is only the beginning of this
campaign. All the students and organizations that were present in the summit made
a goal for their schools and their counties to obtain the support of many. Here in
Guilford County we are seeking support for the petition, but we are also doing videos
of the people who support, saying why they support Let's Learn NC.

Why do I support
or believe you should support? I support Let's Learn NC because education
should not be a privilege, it should be a duty. I support because we all should
have an opportunity to have a higher education in order to look ahead. Why
should you support? Because EDUCATION is necessary in this life and is not
something to distribute among only some of the people. This is still a fight to get equality
- something Guilford College believes in and everyone should start to believe in.
Support in-state tuition equality for undocumented NC state residents by
signing the online petition at letslearnnc.org, by making a video with AFSC
which is shown on the website and youtube.com/NCAdelante!

04/24/2013

Gloria Chonay is an artisan who works
closely with Fair Trade Organizations. Gloria is the leader of Mayan Hands, a cooperative of basket makers in Xeabaj, a rural community in Santa Apolonia,
Chimaltenango, in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Gloria is currently in
the United States and making twelve stops throughout the Southeastern region.
During these visits, Ms. Chonay will be sharing a basket weaving demonstration and
a question and answer session. This will be a chance to
interact with someone who can reveal a very personal perspective of what life
is like for Mayan women, the impact of Fair Trade, and to see how intricate
pine needle baskets are made.

It just so happens that one of Gloria
Chonay's stops is in Greensboro, North Carolina - at Ten Thousand Villages of
Greensboro (1564-A Highwoods Blvd. Greensboro, NC 27410). This event on April 28 from 3 - 5 pm is free
and open to anyone wishing to learn more about languages and
cultures, handicraft traditions, or social
entrepreneurship.

Basket making is a skill
that dates back as early as 10,000 - 12,000 years ago. The earliest baskets
were found in Egypt, in addition to other locations within the Middle East.
Basket making is a skill that takes a significant amount of time to
thoroughly master. Once mastered however, basket makers can create some of the
most beautiful art pieces that the world has ever seen.

I am currently an intern at Ten Thousand Villages and I am majoring in Business Administration. Fair Trade is an intriguing topic and I have learned about many aspects of it during my time at Ten Thousand Villages. Fair Trade means that fair prices are paid to producers in developing countries. Buying items through fair trade can support countless families for years at a time.

04/08/2013

In today’s society, too often people simply overlook theissue of bullying and the detrimental consequences it can have on individuals.
Did you know that researchers have found that children that are victims of bullying are more likely to have psychiatric trouble as adults as well?

Catherine Saint Louis of New York Times wrote an article titled “Effects of Bullying Into Adulthood.” In Louis’ article, she discusses the link that researchers have found between bullying during childhood and psychiatric trouble later in life. Researchers have found that consequences from bullying can sometimes last for a decade after the intimidation has ended. A new study published in JAMA Psychiatry shows that the effects of being bullied are direct, pleiotropic, and long-lasting; with the worst effects for those who are both victims and bullies. The researchers had a sample of 1,420 participants fromWestern North Carolina who were assessed four to six times between the ages of nine and sixteen. The results of the study suggested that children who were subjected to bullying were 4.3 times more likely to have an anxiety disorder during their adulthood. The study also showed that bullies who were also victims were 14.5 times more likely to develop panic disorders as adults and 4.8 times more likely to deal with depression. Dr. William E. Copeland, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical Center said, “Bullying is not aharmless rite of passage, but inflicts lasting psychiatric damage on a par with certain family dysfunctions.”

With response to the effect bullying can have on people there are organizations such as John Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence whose role is to create and implement an evidence based approach to reach out to youth in high-risk communities. To prevent youth violence andpromote positive youth development, John Hopkins Center for Prevention of Youth Violence is looking to 1) monitor and detect fatal and non-fatal youth violence; 2) conduct research aimed at identifying malleable factors related to youth violence and research on interventions that reduce youth violence and associated morbidity and mortality; and 3) create policies and practices that prevent youth violence. John Hopkins Center for Prevention of Youth Violence will also be collaborating with the schools in the high risk areas to help prevent bullying, and promote safe and supportive environments, social-emotional learning, and positive youth development in order to preventviolence. John Hopkins Center for Prevention of Youth Violence is not only looking at methods to prevent youth violence, but also reasons why children are becoming involved with violence/bullying. Another organization that is not mentioned in this article, but I believe to be important in the fight against bullying is stopbullying.gov. Stopbullying.gov is a national organization that is managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. This organization also has a goal of implementing methods and programs to reduce the amount of bullying that takes place in schools today. Something that stopbullying.gov does that I feel is crucial is that they acknowledge all types of bullying, not just physical abuse. Name calling and cyber bullying can cause the same amount or even greater damage to the individual.

The reason that I am bringing this issue to your attention is the similarities that the John Hopkins Center for Prevention of Youth Violence and Stopbullying.gov have in common with the Center of Principled Problem Solving program. All three of these organizations look at specific issues from various angles, puts ideas into action through practice, and use experiential knowledge to teach others. The John Hopkins Center for Prevention of Youth Violence and Stopbully.gov look at the issue of bullying from the bully’s and victim’s perspective to get a better feel as why bullying continues to occur. The Principled Problem Solving uses the same approach of looking at problems in the Guilford Community through different perspectives to get a deeper and better understanding of the issue at hand. All three of these organizations are centered upon implementing ideas or theories that they feel will solve issue they are trying to solve. John Hopkins Center for Prevention of Youth Violencehas employed policies that they feel will best minimize the amount of bullying that takes place in high risk areas. The final similarity that I see between John Hopkins Center for Prevention of Youth Violence and Stopbully.gov and the Center for Principled Problem Solving is that every member involved uses their previous experiences to teach others. As a member of the Principled Problem Solving program I can say that experiential knowledge is one of the best resources to have when trying to solve a problem. Experiential knowledge saves the group time because members already know what has worked and not worked in the past. The members of the John Hopkins Center for Prevention of Youth Violence and Principled Problem Solving are no different, as they know whatpolicies against bullying have worked and not worked in the best. All three of these organizations rely on their members to come together as a community to fight for a common goal.

Whatever the problem I think that looking at the problem through different perspectives, implementing the policies you deem to be the most effective, and using experiential knowledge to your advantage areessential. These methods allow all parties present to have a voice to finding the best solution to the problem and create a sense of community between the members. The most influential aspect of the structure of these organizations to me is that they are still in operation today. The issues that these organizations have tried to solve are still very much present in today’ssociety. While bullying has decreased since the John Hopkins Center for Prevention of Youth Violence and stopbullying.gov were created it still exists. As for the Center of Principled Problem Solving there are still deep issues present in the Guilford Community whether it be the athlete/ non-athlete divide, judicial system, or racism. The fact that all these organizations are still in operation today says a lot about their members’ character. I feel that these types of programs are the stepping stones that United States needs to best discover, examine, and solve problems.

03/05/2013

“All music is made from the same 12 notes. All culture is made from the save five components: behaviors, relationships, attitudes, valuesand environment. It’s the way those notes or components are put together thatmakes things sing.” - George Bradt

As cliché as the quote above may be, I think it may be the phrase on community that hitsthe nail on the head. In all our class discussions on the makeup and integrity ofcommunity in the Principled Problem Solving Program, I do not believe anybodyhas taken an approach quite like this. This comparison of community to music isan eye opening example of reframing a difficult problem into an ideal opportunity. Even now as I type, I laughed a little bit to myself as I just referred to the quote above that was applied to my home town of Kokomo, IN. To even talkabout Kokomo as an “ideal opportunity” in any sense other that demolition and foreclosuresfour years ago would make you either an uninformed and ignorant optimist, orworse, outright stupid. It amazes me, really, that a city whose community wasso broken and depleted in 2008 can be the talk of anything positive now. Butthat’s what it’s doing. It is making people talk, and making people take stockin the value that community can actually have on an area and on its members.

In 2008, Kokomo was ranked by Forbes Magazine as the third fastest dying city inAmerica (See Kokomo's description in Forbes now). More than one in five people were laid off their jobs, factories were cutting wages and hours, the city had the highest foreclosure rates and mostundervalued property in the nation. Buildings and homes sat empty and went towaste and federally declared environmental disaster spots, leftovers from theindustrial heyday of the city, rotted away, making the city reflect the samelook of hopelessness that was on every resident's face. Proposed solutions,while high in numbers, were not high in potential. The community was broken andapathetic. “Why pretend to be something we’re not? We’re not a tourist town, we’renot a white collar community, and we ain’t rich…. What’s the use?”

I was one on the biggest perpetrators, denying that Kokomo had any real chance of recoveryand assuming it was taking its last breath. But if you were to ask me today, Iwould say that maybe I spoke too soon. I used to hate how the city was spendingour federal assistance money, and how it was allocating our taxes. The citytook on a “beautification initiative”, tearing out decaying buildings andhiring community members to install artwork, or build public facilities intheir place. Roads were being torn up and repaved, only this time with grassyand flowered medians that were “adopted “and maintained by local businesses.Despite what seemed an exhorbitantly high cost, the city tore down ContinentalSteel, a condemned, giant, and ancient industrial factory, that three of mygrandfathers had worked at, and that had turned large parts of our city intoenvironmental hazards. Investments were made to expand the downtown YMCA, toprovide poor public school students with an extra meal to take home , to buildnew bike lanes, establish a bus line, and to improve our public parks andhistorical sites.(Kokomo Perspective)

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the investments in the infrastructures around my city.I did; and I thought that the cost was more than the gain. My problem was thatI thought the challenge was rebuilding the city, when in actuality it wasrebuilding our community. Our city’s investment in its citizens is starting topay off, improving the atmosphere and the mindset of my home. I used to notbelieve my economics teacher when she said the largest influence on the economyis speculation. Now I think the same thing can be said for community. We feedoff each other, and what we believe we can get out of our community is what weget. Even if just one person’s spirits were raised by the beautificationproject, or if just one more person made it to a job interview because of thenew bus line, then it is probably worth it. Success is contagious, and once youmove the focus of success from an individual standpoint to a communal standpointthen it becomes more than an attribute; it becomes a culture. I want to end withone last quote by Bradt: “Given enough time and money, your competitors canduplicate almost everything you’ve got working for you…. The only thing theycan’t duplicate is your culture.”

However you view community, you must never lose track of the immeasurable. Set you goals quantitatively, and hope you improve your numbers; but most of all hope these numbers and figureslead to something you will never be able to accurately document in a report. I can tell you that Kokomo has now been visited by the President, cited as an example of what hope for recovery canlook like. I can tell you that we now have several businesses that have beenranked in the state as the “best places to work”, or that our downtown is almostunrecognizable from even just two years ago. (Kokomo Tribune) However, I couldn’t ever describe toyou the atmosphere that you can sometimes feel in The City of Firsts, from acommunity that knows it came back from the dead.

02/22/2013

Dana Powell, an Anthropology professor at the Appalachian State University, discussed the issue and use of alternative energy in the Navajo Nation. Dana Powell '96 is an alumnus of Guilford College. Before Dana’s presentation, I knew nothing about the Desert Rock Energy Project, not even where the Navajo Nation was located. I did not know what to expect from the discussion, but was ready to actively listen to what Dana had to say.

The Navajo Nation is located is a semi- autonomous Native American-governed territory occupying portions of northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico. The Navajo Nation is the largest reservation of Native Americans in the United States, covering 27,673 miles. Sithe Global Power LLC, located in Houston, Texas, and Dinè Power Authority, located on the Navajo Nation, together proposed the Desert Rock Energy Project. The Desert Rock Energy Project would comprise a 192 acre parcel of the Navajo Nation, and would be located about 30 miles southwest of Farmington, New Mexico. The Desert Rock Energy Project would include a power plant, which would be a mouth mined supercritical low sulfur pulverized coal fired electrical power plant. The power plant itself would include two 750 megawatt units that would be able to generate up to 1500 megawatts of power. This state of the art power plant is designed to improve the efficiency of the production of electrical power while at the same time reducing the amount of emissions into the atmosphere. The Desert Rock Energy Project proposed to pay the Navajo Nation $52 million a year in exchange for the Navajo Nation allowing the Desert Rock Energy Project to build a power plant on their reservation.

Dana’s presentation addressed the socio-cultural politics of energy technologies and environmentalism on the Navajo Nation. Dana discussed the ethnographic perspective on the Desert Rock Energy Project, a controversial coal-fired power plant proposed for Navajo land. The construction of the power plant has still not even been started, even though it was proposed in 2004. However, Desert Rock has emerged as a blueprint for ongoing debates concerning sustainability, environmental justice, contending cosmologies, and indigenous identity. The Desert Rock story reveals that debates about the infrastructure and environment of the Navajo Nation.

Dana explained the point of views from both sides of the environmental debate. First, she discussed the Navajo Nation’s perspective about not wanting to disturb their sacred land. Navajo groups have sustained long term campaigns protesting the development in areas that the Navajo believe to be part of their historic territory. Navajo groups have protested against the development on their holy mountains that play a huge role in Navajo cosmology. The Navajo are also worried about the amount of water that will be consumed by the power plants, due to the fact that water is a precious commodity in the desert. The issue of regional haze and emission of mercury into the atmosphere has also been brought up by the protest groups of the Navajo Nation. On the other side of the argument is the Desert Rock Energy Project. Sithe Global Power LLC and Dinè Power Authority feel as though the $52 million dollars being paid annually to the Navajo will alleviate a lot of the social ills in the Navajo Nation. Frank Maisano, the spokesman for Sithe Gobal Power LLC, reassured the Navajo activist groups that the Desert Rock Power Plant would be one of the cleanest plants in the nation. According to Frank Maisano, the Desert Rock Power Plant would reduce carbon emissions by 15 to 20 percent, mercury and sulfur emissions, and water consumption up to 80 percent through supercritical boiler technology. The Desert Rock Energy Project ensures the Navajo Nation that this action will bring in taxes, revenues, water payments, and build an investment strategy that will provide dividend income.

After listening to Dana’s entire presentation the one core value that kept popping in my head was stewardship. Guilford College describes stewardship as “committing to making decisions that will insure the long term survival of this institution”. I believe that both sides of the debate are creating a sense of stewardship. In the Navajo Nation’s case, they want to be sure the construction of the Desert Rock Power Plant will not lead to the decimation of their people through pollution and water consumption. The Navajo activist groups have the Navajo Nation’s people’s best interest at heart and do not feel that the pros outweigh the cons. The Navajos also would like to insure the long term survival of their culture and ancestors during the construction of the Desert Rock Power Plant, which could potentially destroy historic territory of the Navajo. On the other hand Sithe Global Power LLC is enabling a sense of stewardship by trying to construct a power plant that they feel will insure the long term survival of their company. Sithe Global Power LLC’s goal is to implement large scale socially power generation projects in places where success has proven challenging. Both sides feel their sense of stewardship is the best solution to the environmental/social issue.

The Energy Activism in the Navajo Nation presentation by Dana Powell, was a great experience. The discussion opened my eyes to the current environmental sustainability issues that are ongoing in the United States. Learning about the Navajo Nation really inspired me to one day take a tour of the Navajo Nation to obtain a real sense of what the Navajo have to endure on a daily basis.

01/31/2013

“…
‘there’s no use in wiring the world if we short circuit our souls.’ Ladies and
Gentlemen, Tom Brokaw.” Those were the final words of Kent Chabotar’s
introduction speech, a quote directly from the historic NBC Nightly News anchor
Tom Brokaw, as he walked bird-chested onto the Greensboro Coliseum stage with a
confidence like he was walking into a room of people he already knew. I was
sitting in a folding chair side stage next to the other members of Guilford’s
top jazz combo, who were already buzzing from the excellent performance we had
just played as people filed in, and fantasizing about all the things we’d
spend our gig money on. All I was thinking at that moment was whether or not
Tom Brokaw heard our performance, or if he liked jazz at all. When his marble
white hair caught the stage lights, I was assured that he did; something I’ve
come to learn from audiences at jazz concerts is that the more white hair you
can see from the stage, the better your reception will be. However, when Tom Brokaw
opened his mouth, he addressed the audience with the loud booming voice of
someone much less historic than himself, and before I could react his orations
descended like a spell over the audience, mesmerizing us into a silence where a
sneeze sounded like a gun shot.

Tom
began his speech with well-rehearsed witty anecdotes about his childhood and
life as an anchorman, as is the common icebreaker tactic of the Bryan speakers,
but I was surprised how quickly and abruptly his clever stories transitioned to
the inadequate care American veterans receive when they return from war,
realities on the conflict in the middle east, and the selling of our souls to
technology. He elaborated to great lengths his journalism coverage and personal
stories about veterans receiving qualifications for army training that
understated their marketability in the workplace; from battlefield medics
getting turned down for hospital and paramedic positions, to engineers who were
turned away from positions in mechanical engineering and construction. He also
related a very personal story about a veteran from his home town that was
seriously injured in an explosion in Iraq, and returned to a non-disability
friendly environment and had to endure much pain and hardship before the
community stepped in to accommodate his disabilities. When Tom addressed the
conflict in the Middle East, he made sure every person in the audience knew
that American news stations broadcast the conflict from the Israeli
perspective, and that many horrible war crimes the Israelis have inflicted on
Palestinians go unaddressed in most American news stations. Finally, he ended
with a message regarding the mindlessness people develop when they refer to 21st
century technology to solve most of their problems. He used his upbringing in
post-depression circumstances and his house in the prairie of Montana to
illustrate the beauty of experiences and entertainment created between friends
and nature over anything that can fit on a monitor or screen, and the
difference between a :) character and the actual act of smiling. He concluded his own speech with the
same quote Kent Chabotar ended his introduction with, “There is no point in
wiring the world if we short-circuit our souls.”

What I
found so excellent about Tom Brokaw’s speech was how his messages resonated
with all ages of the audience. There was a large number of elderly people
juxtaposed next to sections of college students, yet the response from both age
groups was equally enthusiastic. I also believe the three main points in his
speech resonated particularly well with the Guilford students in attendance;
especially his messages about losing character through technology. The majority
of students at Guilford own personal laptops or televisions, and I’d hope that
the next time students present at his speech get bored, they would consider a
walk through the Guilford woods, or getting to know a stranger better, instead
of watching TV or surfing the web. This was my personal takeaway from Tom
Brokaws’ speech, and I intend to follow through with this by discovering a new
area of the Guilford woods after I finish this conclusion paragraph. I implore
whoever reads this to do the same: get off your computer, pick up your phone, call
someone you’ve been meaning to get in touch with, and go make memories more
worth telling your grandchildren about than anything you could do staring at
this screen.

12/14/2012

As an Multicultural Leadership Scholars Program (MLSP) Scholar, I meet once a week with my peers to discuss diversity within the Guilford community, and how we can improve our leadership skills within this community. On Sunday, October 28th, rather than meeting in our regular place in the MED, our group met in the Carnegie Room at Hege Library to see a presentation by the Friends Historical Collection (which I knew nothing about). As it turns out, we were attending the first installation of The Listening Project, Guilford’s Integration: 1962 Before and After. To be honest, I had heard little about the project, but I did recognize the name from a series of events during Homecoming Weekend celebrating 50 years of integration. Sure, it is safe to say I was not ecstatic to hear I was required to sit through an oral history presentation on a beautiful Sunday evening. As a matter of fact, I was quite upset. But then something interesting happened… (*gasps, whispers, elbow nudges*). I learned that, as unfortunate as it may sound, Guilford College has been lying to me.

Racists went to Guilford College. That’s right, I went there. Racists went to Guilford College, long before there was ever a Bryan Incident or rough-neck footballers rolling through campus on 26” Asanti wheels. During Rudy Gordh’s oral history of the 1960’s here at Guilford, he brought to the audience’s attention that there were a series of unfortunate events that followed the integration of Guilford’s student population. For those of you who do not know, Rudy Gordh is a white male from North Carolina; unfortunately, modern-day television has programmed me to the point where Rudy is exactly what I see in my mind when I hear the word racist. What I find so interesting about this is that he was the first out of four interviewees to even acknowledge that there was any sort of racial tension on campus during the early stages of integration. The first man interviewed was James McCorkle, the first person to be integrated at Guilford! Would he not have something to say about racial tension if there was any at all? Rudy said there was a cross burned into a mattress of a young man outside of a dormitory in response to a march for integration in downtown Greensboro. Would James have not been compelled to tell this story? According to his own oral history, he was sheltered while on campus and never saw any sort of racial tensions while attending Guilford. None at all!

What I found even more interesting was that the individuals who were harassing liberal students were actually jocks who lived in English Hall. This immediately reminded me of Guilford current “Athlete / Non-athlete divide”. It seems that even in Guilford’s history, its student-athletes were overwhelmingly more conservative and resistant to change than traditional, non-athlete students. Moreover, these differences create a barrier, and instead of bringing the Guilford community closer together, it divides it down the middle. Sure, many people see the collective Guilford as a community, but there are handfuls of divisions that have lasted over time and remain among our student population. In order to overcome the divisions, rather than sweep them under the rug they have been in the past, embrace them. Confront them. Without doing so, we will let them grow.